


per aspera ad astra

by bodtlings



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH, International Space Station, NASA, and i was watching the ISS feed, dude oikawa loves space, so i made oikawa love it too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:38:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodtlings/pseuds/bodtlings
Summary: It is common knowledge that Oikawa loves space, but it goes beyond just fascination: to him, space is a comfort, even if he can only see it from the screen of his laptop.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i was over on twitter talking about how much oikawa must love the live feed of the international space station, and so this was born.
> 
> the title is latin for "through hardships to the stars." it's actually the motto for a ton of military organizations around the world and is also used for school mottos as well. its so oikawa too, i couldn't resist.

Since he’s little, Oikawa has loved space.

Everyone knows this: from his glow-in-the-dark alien socks, to the alien buttons on his backpack, to every space-related paraphernalia in his possession, it’s kind of hard to ignore.

But it’s not just an obsession: it’s an odd sort of comfort.

Since he’s little, Oikawa has loved space. When his mother bought a laptop for the family to share, Oikawa had always called last dibs on it for the day. He’d bring the charger and laptop under his arms up to his room, set it on his night table, and went right to the NASA website. First it was articles, then it was pictures, then it was videos. Until one day, while perusing their latest discoveries, Oikawa happened across a link to a page that had a livestream of the International Space Station. He’d clicked it with concealed fascination and was brought to a black screen. For a few minutes, nothing loaded, and Oikawa was disappointed. He refreshed and refreshed and refreshed the page so many times that it eventually stopped loading altogether, and he closed the laptop in defeat.

The next night, Oikawa went back to the page and clicked the link again. The screen was still black, but he resolved not to exit out of it or refresh it until it loaded.

And a few minutes later, it did. The picture was a little hazy; nothing fancy, but it was _live_ and it was from _space._ The cameras were angled down towards Earth, and it fed back to the internet live video from all the way up in space, miles and miles and miles away. The cameras showed the path of the station in slow movements, going over the cloud-covered people down below with lives and professions and passions of enormous volume. Oikawa, mouth open, held on to the covers of his bed, lest his body decided gravity was nonexistent and he could float up to meet the space station himself.

That night, he’d slipped his legs and arms under the covers, with the laptop screen facing him, and he lay in bed watching the International Space Station continue to hover and move in its calculated path. He fell asleep with it on and dreamt he was on the space station, flying in space over the Earth.

During every night following, Oikawa carried the laptop up to his room and sets it on his night table to watch the live feed as he’s going to sleep. His mother was annoyed at first, because she was the one bringing it back down every morning, but when she opened the laptop to see it was the last thing he watched every night, she didn’t mind so much. She didn’t say anything and let him carry it up without complaint.

 

* * *

 

That NASA live feed became a constant in Oikawa’s life; it wasn’t just something that he fell asleep to, but it was something to calm him down.

As he grew older, he didn’t watch the live feed every single night, but on days when he needed something to calm him down, it was there.

After being named captain of the volleyball team and starring setter, Oikawa’s responsibilities grew exponentially. He was no longer in charge of just himself, but a _team_. A real team with real people who have to count on him to pull them together, to bring out the best in them and make it work. Constant practice, strategization, and careful maneuvering of plays, positions, attacks and defenses were constantly calling his attention, and sometimes, it was a lot to deal with.

Not that he was alone, but sometimes he needed to be, and that was okay.

Before their matches, Oikawa would purposely be the last one in the locker room. The rest of his teammates would file out to stretch and practice their spikes and warm up with each other, but Oikawa chose to stay behind, especially when anxious. It wasn’t frequent, but sometimes Oikawa would forget his talent, forget his hours spent on the court, forget he was powerful. Sometimes his knee would twinge under the confines of the brace or his heart rate would increase or his legs would shake. Sometimes his fingers would lose feeling and his arms would go numb, and before he could realize, his breathing would come so quick his pulse was uncontrollably erratic.

In instances like these, he’d shakily pull out his phone from his bag and go to his favorites bar. Right at the first slot in his bookmarks was the NASA live feed, and he’d click it and watch the International Space Station continue its ceaseless journey overhead.

Oikawa would focus: he’d trace the patterns of the clouds over Earth, he’d count how many seconds would pass by for the space station to move passed a specific spot. Oikawa would become mesmerized by the screen, and the slow-moving travel of the space station overhead would bring feeling back to Oikawa’s fingers, ease his pulse, and calm his mind. It was a sort of present nostalgia in that it reminded him of how it helped him sleep, but helped him now in returning him back to where he was.

That live feed was everything to Oikawa -- not just because he loved space, which he did, very much, but because it, funnily enough, helped him come back down to Earth. And after each victory on the court, with shouts from teammates and friends and bodies in the stands, Oikawa felt like he was back on the space station like in his dreams, hovering over the Earth and showing everyone sights they’ve only dreamed of seeing themselves.

After those matches, Oikawa would go to bed with his own laptop open to watch the ISS, and he’d fall asleep to dreams of stars and lights and a weightlessness he swears he’ll capture back on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone's interested i have commission info over [here](http://bodtlings.tumblr.com/post/150711098277/hello-everyone-im-gonna-keep-this-as-short-as)! thanks for reading


End file.
